


One Word

by tis_but_a_scratch



Category: Glee
Genre: Alternate Timelines, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Fluff, Gen, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-26
Updated: 2017-10-29
Packaged: 2018-11-05 04:47:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 6,959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11006310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tis_but_a_scratch/pseuds/tis_but_a_scratch
Summary: With schoolwork, glee club, applying for college, and the bullies the only thing pulling Kurt through it all is the word that appears every morning on his wrist and disappears each night from his soulmate. It’s the one thing that keeps him going through everything.The new school was a safe place for Blaine, but he really only felt safe when he had the small affirmation on his wrist and he hoped it would have the same effect on the person it would appear on. He wants to find the person, his soulmate, he wants to find them so badly that he takes every little bit of writing that appears on his skin as a clue to who it could be. He never imagined it would take as long as it did, but one word can change it all.





	1. Background info

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a bit of background as to how the au works, then a tiny bit of prologue. the real story starts in the next chapter/part

Okay so this here will be written like I may write an annotation/note if needed. This is in fact a soulmate au so I am gonna go ahead and explain a few things before the actual start of all this stuff. The premise of this au is that whatever a person writes on themselves shows up on their soulmates. Example: Say person A and person B are soulmates if A were to draw a heart on their left hand it would also appear on B’s left hand. Then a few more things: 1. It is completely possible that someone will not have a soulmate 2. If someone’s soulmate dies it is possible that they may have another soulmate, this works mainly if two people lose their soulmate and later learn they are each other’s new soulmate 3. People can have platonic soulmates, though I don’t know how much this will be shown throughout this story.

* * *

 

[I am the artist, but here's the post](http://prick-love-for-pricking.tumblr.com/post/160911606602/that-soulmate-au-where-whatever-one-person-writes). 

* * *

 

People tell the stories of soulmates. The stories of searching for love, of having someone there all the time just a pen stroke away, of losing love and finding something new, of love growing old, of ideals. People become attached to these stories and want what others have had through searching for a soulmate.


	2. chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let's get this thing started! I hope this isn't too bad but it's been a pretty long time since I've actually written anything seriously, anyway Enjoy! fyi these first few chapters might be short as I get into writing again.

Blue markers filled the side pockets of Blaine’s backpack all the time and if his backpack wasn’t close he had one or two in his pocket. There was always a blue marker within arms reach. The reason for this was clear if you just looked at Blaine’s arm, every single day he would draw patterns all the way up his forearm. What little Blaine had learned of about soulmates from peers and his brother, Cooper, made him determined to find his. He wanted to be like a fairy-tale prince that finds his soulmate with clues from the writing on his arms. 

It was a cool fall day after school in the middle of Blaine’s 7th grade school year when words from his soulmate finally appeared on Blaine’s skin while walking home. _ My dad keeps asking why my arms are covered in drawings _ . The words had shown up on his palm just above a swirl that extended up past his wrist before falling back into the mess it came from.  _ Are they bad? _ Blaine wrote directly above what had just appeared.  _ No I like them I like them a lot.  _

Blaine slung his backpack onto the kitchen table and sat down; he couldn’t stop looking at the writing on his palm. This only made him more interested in who they were; he didn’t know the handwriting, it was smooth and loopy unlike his own messy writing. 

“What're ya staring at kid?” Cooper had sat down across the table from Blaine and had noticed him just staring at his hand. A smile spread across Blaine’s face as he held up his palm for his brother to see and said, “my soulmate talked to me and they like my drawings”

* * *

 

Swirls covered Kurt's arms most days during 8th grade, but he had never seen anyone at school with the same patterns. He never knew where, or who, they were coming from, but nevertheless he liked looking at them and watching them appear throughout the day.

“More swirls today, huh, kid?”

Kurt was sitting at a workbench doing math homework in the tire shop when he heard his dad’s question. Swirls in shades of blue trailed up and down Kurt's forearm that day with a few words written between the swirls. Though the swirls were beautiful, but Kurt had forgotten about them for most of the day until his father, Burt, started asking about them. He traced the swirls with his fingers and just nodded in response to the question. 

Everyday there were questions about the swirls on Kurt’s arm, some people had gotten used to them being there, others were genuinely interested, and others still poked fun at him because of them. Kurt’s dad had always been supportive and always said something about them, though his comments were usually something along the lines of “you think blue’s their favorite color?”, “swirls again?”, or “I don’t know much about that kind of stuff, but I think that color matches your clothes”. 

Kurt pulled his backpack towards himself from across the bench, he dug through it until finally pulling out a red gel pen that he’d never really used and started to write on his palm. He’d only ever watched as the patterns showed up on his skin. He didn’t want to mess up the pretty designs by writing near them, but he now wanted to know more about who was behind the drawing. He wrote the first thing to come to mind on his palm,  _ My dad keeps asking why my arms are covered in drawings.  _


	3. chapter 2

That school year went by with the drawings continuing to appear on Kurt’s arms throughout the school day and disappear as he was getting ready for bed. They would almost always fade away in drips; it was nice to watch them fade and wonder what the person on the other side was like. He wondered about the person a lot; when the swirls would be drawn on slower than usual he worried about them and when they were drawn on in a rush he wanted to know what was going on. Every once in awhile Kurt would write notes on his palm, always with the same red gel pen, and get something back from the person though their conversations never lasted more than a few sentences. Though their conversations were short lived and almost always were started by Kurt, he was always happy when he heard from the person. 

Most of Kurt’s summer was spent at home looking at fashion online or in the tire-shop helping his dad with cleaning or inventory, but he really didn’t mind. He liked spending time with his dad even if he wasn’t doing something he liked. Burt on the other hand, he wanted Kurt to spend time with other people his age instead of cooping himself up in his room or being around adults all day, but that wasn’t really much of an option for him. Kurt didn’t talk to many people at school unless he had a reason to, it was hard to make friends if you weren’t what everyone else deemed “normal” and Kurt was not that normal in the slightest. 

Nevertheless August rolled around and the thoughts of school came in quickly. He dreaded starting that school year and didn’t leave his room for a week before the first day. The day before school started Kurt grabbed his red pen and decided to write a note to his soulmate:  _ I’m afraid. _ He was being vague, he didn’t want to be a burden to whoever was on the other side. He waited for the reply, it took a while, but one word finally showed up.

_ Courage _

* * *

 

Blaine’s summer was relatively uneventful. He didn’t remember much of he did; it was a blur of hanging out with friends, going on vacation with his parents and older brother, and a bunch of other stuff that had made no mark on his memory. The moments that stuck out the most were the notes that would appear on his palm every so often. Some messages were clearly directed at him:  _ I like this blue  _ with an arrow pointing down at a little doodle done in a dark blue or  _ no drawings today :(  _ from the week when his family went to the beach and the ocean would wash off anything Blaine drew. Other things clearly weren’t meant for him like a phone number and a name with a note saying  _ tell dad to call back _ . Even the notes not meant for him stood out in Blaine’s memory, they were clues to who this person was and it was the most interesting thing to try to piece together little bits of the person. 

Waiting for school to start was strange, the two weeks before were filled with hurried shopping for school supplies, orientation with teachers he had known of for two years though he hadn’t had their class, and a weird nervousness even though he’d been with these people since he was a little kid. The way he felt only got weirder when two words appeared on his palm in the loopy handwriting that made him smile each time he watched it appear, except this time the words made him worried about the person:  _ I’m afraid _ . Blaine’s thoughts were all over the place when he saw that, what were they afraid of? He assumed that they were around the same age as him, were they afraid of school? Did they not want to go back? Why were they afraid? This was the biggest thing he had learned about the person and it was still just another mystery. He couldn’t think a good enough response to what he read. Those two little words filled his head and he wrote the one thing he could think of:  _ Courage.  _

As school started Blaine wrote that same word in the same place each morning, hoping it would help the person on the other side, but it also seemed to help him get over the strange feeling had going to school each day. Drawing on his arm had always been a comfort to him, but for some reason this little word was different. It stuck out from under his sleeve if he wore something long sleeved and he liked looking down at it when he was going through something at school. At this moment in time he was questioning himself and the word was helping him through it all.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I might make another thing for this au to follow other characters because this is gonna follow Kurt and Blaine with little bits of other characters popping in along the way. I am so happy that people are actually interested in what I'm writing even if it's something I'm doing for practice and my own enjoyment. I am getting really into writing this and I'm working on another au that I personally really like because the genre it could fit is one of my favs.


	4. chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Blaine might seem a little out of character here, but I am basing off what I know of being an eighth grader and figuring out who you are when you're that age. My experience isn't quite the same (as I had to deal with not having feelings for people and feigning that I did [I'm ace fyi]), and I'm trying the best I can to write from experience and keep the characters true to themselves. So much for being lighthearted huh.

Getting thrown in dumpsters hurt, being pushed into lockers hurt, it all hurt and there was no way of getting away from it. Distracting himself helped sometimes, the pop of the cap from his red gel pen being pulled of and it click of it going back into its place filled the space in his head until he got to his locker. The slamming of the locker next to his was the only thing that pulled Kurt from his thoughts.

Grounding himself back in reality Kurt quickly opened his lock and got out the books he needed for his first few classes. He held the books tightly while walking to class so that if he were to be pushed into yet another locker he would not have to go through the embarrassment of picking up his papers off the floor. He'd sort of gotten used to the fact that people were bullying him, but that didn't change the fact that it hurt.

Kurt sat through his first class tracing the doodles on his arms as they appeared, the shade of blue changing every so often from a highlighter color to sky blue to an almost indigo color with a quick pause between colors. When the doodles filled most of Kurt’s forearm they stopped and the same word that had shown up the night before he started that school year appeared on his wrist, C _ourage,_ just as it would each morning. The handwriting was the same handwriting he'd watched appear for over a year, but this time it was slower and the g was looped like the way Kurt drew his g’s. It was almost as if the person were trying to blend their handwriting styles.

A small smile made its way onto Kurt's face as he looked down at his wrist. Unknowingly Kurt had spent all class in his own little world of doodles instead of paying attention to whatever event in world history they were going over that day. He quickly wrote the homework for that night in a notebook, gathered his things, and left for his next class with a bit more confidence than usual.

* * *

 

“Earth to Anderson. Come on Blaine, we gotta go to lunch.” Blaine looked up from his spot in back of the classroom to see everyone except one of his few friends had left the classroom. Blaine’s desk was covered in the same blue markers that usually filled his pockets. His friend leaned against the door as Blaine shoved his markers into his pockets and grabbed his lunch box from under his desk before running out of the classroom.

“Well, aren’t you coming?” Blaine called to his friend, who was still standing in the doorway. School was alright for Blaine, he had a few friend and he was in the school’s chorus, but the days still seemed to go by so fast with no real outstanding moments. He kept up good grades to make his parents happy, but he tended to zone out during class finding himself thinking about being with the person who he talked to sometimes through little notes on their palms.

“Blaine,” his friend waved his hand in front of Blaine’s face as he spoke “you almost walked right past the freakin cafeteria.” Blaine gave a half smile and forced a laugh before following his friend into the cafeteria. Lunch was the same as every other day just a bunch of joking around and not really paying too much attention to what was going on around him. Laugh when someone makes a joke, don’t stare at anything or anyone for more than a few seconds, pretend to be looking at a girl when actually looking at the boy sitting behind her, smile back when one of girls looks over, keep the sweatshirt sleeve pulled up to cover the doodles, just be normal. He could do that, pretend to be normal until he was ready to not be.

He hated that he was doing this, but he just needed a little time to build up the courage to tell someone. If he could just tell one person he might have the confidence to tell, well, everyone. For now he was okay hiding it until he knew it was safe to actually tell people. Glancing down at his wrist he realized he was zoning out again, and rejoined his friends’ conversation.

The rest of the school day went by without a hitch. Blaine wanted to talk to the person he’d been drawing doodles to for so long. After dinner Blaine sat on his bed with one of the many markers he had brought to school and hadn’t taken out of his pocket in his hand. He knew what he wanted to write, but he waited to write it because he was scared of what he would get back. His hand was shaky when he wrote the question on his palm _this is a weird question, but are you a boy?_ The response was quick and Blaine was happy to see the loopy writing: _yeah, are you??_ Blaine smiled and replied just as quickly, _yes._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whenever I write for this i check the word count like I would when I was in Film and had to write a specific number of words for each paper. I want to write a lot, but I'm not the best at writing a lot in one sitting thus why these chapters take me a few days to write. Also I keep wanting to write first block class instead of first period class because I'm used to classes being referred to as blocks. COMPLETELY UNRELATED: the cellos in S3:E11 (when Sebastian and Santana are singing) are being played with bows with messy af hairs, why would play with a bow that has a huge chunk of hair hanging out that isn’t how that works.


	5. chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is also known as the one where I wrote the Kurt part in about an hour and it has taken two days for the Blaine part. To answer questions about what can and cannot be written. yes, identifying information would go through, but where's the fun in that. I guess people would just be like “ey who u b” and get back a name if they wanted to, and if that were the case here we'd have no story you know? And do you really think either would ruin the mystery of it like that?

Kurt had been doing math homework when the question showed up on his hand, honestly he was open to any reason to not do his homework and this was a much better reason than just kind of wanting to work on some clothes. _This is a weird question,_ then a pause like the person didn't want to ask or was worried about the answer, _but are you a boy?_ That didn't seem to be that weird of a question and Kurt quickly wrote a reply, _yeah, are you??,_ and got back to his homework. It took him a few minutes to notice that he'd gotten an answer, _yes_ his soulmate was a boy.

It was a numb moment for Kurt, not good or bad, just kind of numb. Maybe it was because he was doing homework, maybe he just knew or hoped in the back of his head that his soulmate was a boy, maybe it just hadn't hit him yet. He didn’t focus on the fact until he was laying in bed trying to fall asleep. He knew he was gay, but he hadn't told anyone because no one had asked or there was just no one to ask. He and his dad didn't talk about that kind of stuff so there wasn't really a reason to talk about it. Knowing that it’d just be another reason people had to bully him also made him hesitate, not wanting to add to the fire's fuel. He sat awake just thinking for about an hour before finally falling asleep.

_He was dancing with a man whose figure was changing each time he looked away, tall and thin, short yet muscular, long wispy hair and sharp facial features, short curly hair against a square jaw, he couldn't see the man's eyes and his ever changing features made it hard to focus on him, yet he was still beautiful despite his changing. The pair danced in an empty room. Slowly the empty room transformed into a school hallway, lockers surrounding the two. They continued their dance until the changing man's mouth formed an angry smirk and he pushed his partner into the lockers that now surrounded them._

_The changing man's face began to resemble all of the bullies Kurt had faced throughout his school career as his back hit the lockers. He sank to ground and brought his knees to his chest. The music that I once surrounded them was now over powered by yelling, so many voices yelling at him. He wanted to yell back, tell the voices that they couldn't hurt him, tell the voices they weren't real, but he stayed on the ground staring at the changing man's face. The face that was once beautiful was now so distorted that making out a face was almost impossible. All of the yelling voices came from the changing man's mouth and all Kurt could do was cry as the voices became louder and louder until he couldn't take it anymore. He covered his ears and tried to look away from the man. The man came closer to Kurt, too close. That was the only time he saw the man's eyes._

Kurt felt sticky and sweaty and scared when he jumped awake at the sight of the changing man's eyes. He couldn't get the image of that face out of his head, how the face had turned into something so horrible was burnt into his mind. The only thing Kurt could do was sit up, pull his knees up to his chest, and cry just like in his dream. He didn't know how long he'd spent like that; his alarm clock read 4:53, an hour before he normally woke up.

The conversation from the night before was still on his hand along with the word that’d been appearing each morning though the swirls had faded significantly. Kurt smiled at the sight of the reminder of something good he could look forward to. When his clock hit 5:15 he decided there was no way he’d be able to get back to sleep and got up to get ready for school.

* * *

 

Learning little things about his soulmate always made Blaine smile, and he'd started writing down the things he learned alongside the the things he had assumed. The list wasn't very long: they liked the doodles, they always wrote in red, they must like red, they have nice loopy handwriting, they like the indigo marker, they never write about their mother, they're afraid of something (maybe school???), ~~they’re~~ he is a boy. Just a few little things that meant the world to him. It was all he knew of someone he was going to meet one day, and he was determined to find out more about his soulmate.

The school year went on by as normal with Blaine writing a question on his palm whenever he thought of something he wanted to ask and got the confidence to ask. The questions were usually simple and wouldn't seem important to most people, but everything no matter how small was important to him. He just wanted to know.

School was fine up until a few months before the school year ended, Blaine had finally built the courage to come out to his friends and his parents after his friend had done the same and there wasn't much backlash. Maybe a few idiots calling them names, but nothing Blaine couldn't deal with at least he wasn't pretending to be something he wasn't anymore. His friend had even asked Blaine to go to a school dance with him.

The dance was fun, he and his friend spent most of the night happily dancing and singing along to whatever pop songs were playing. It was great until they stood outside waiting for his friend's dad to pick them up. Some of the boys who had been calling them names at school started pushing them around or that was how it started. The scene escalated quickly, the bullies knocked out Blaine’s friend yet still continued to kick him and Blaine was barely able to keep himself from sharing the treatment before someone noticed what was going on. Blaine got away with just a few stitches and a lot of bruises, but his friend wasn't as lucky ending up in the hospital because of the injuries.

The boys who did it ended up being suspended. Blaine was able to finish that school year, but as soon as the year ended his father decided he'd be safer at another school, a private school that wouldn't tolerate that kind of behavior.


	6. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> look who's shit at writing consistently? That’s right it’s ME! (extra shit because I wrote this note in the google doc like a week ago)

Two weeks went by with no doodles or notes appearing on Kurt’s arm and he was incredibly worried. It had never been that long without anything. He could barely focus on his exams and when he did forget his worrying it was only because he was focusing on a meticulous task like counting inventory with his father. 

“Kurt, you've counted those about ten times I’m pretty sure the number hasn't changed in the past 30 seconds,” Burt said watching Kurt whisper to himself. 

Kurt looked up the box of screws he'd been counting. He knew he'd get the same number each time he counted them, but it had given him something else to focus on. Still he gave a half smile and replied, “sorry, just making sure,” before putting the box away and walking out of the storage room. 

At that point Kurt was sent home by his dad with the reasoning of “you're a kid, you shouldn't be in the tire-shop all the time, go do something for yourself.” After about ten minutes of trying to say he really didn't have much else to do, Kurt finally agreed to go home. 

Seeing as he didn't have much else to do Kurt sat on the floor surrounded by some clothes he was working on and a bunch of messy sketches of planned outfits. That shirt's too long, that one is too big around the torso but the arms fit good, that jackets sleeves are too long, little things he could probably fix really quickly. Working on his clothes let him stop thinking about anything else, it was nice.

At some point he got out his red pen to write something down about an outfit and ended up looking at his arm again, still no doodles. He sat with the pen in his hand debating with himself over whether or not he should try to draw something on his arm. Most of his debating was over what to actually draw, he didn't want to copy the stuff that normally showed up on his arms, but he also didn't want to weird the guy out. Nevertheless he started to draw on his arm, just some small things like stars at first then it went into him doodling outfits the same way he did on his notes. It was nice. 

_ I don't know why you aren't drawing and  _

_ I don't know why it's taken me so long to write anything to you but I really hope you're okay  _

_ I guess just follow the advice you gave me: have courage  _

_ okay? _

* * *

 

It hurt to think about that night, but it was the only thing running through Blaine’s mind for weeks afterwards. He barely got through his end of grade tests and didn't even go to school the last few days. All he wanted to do was lay in bed trying to think through what has happened. He blamed himself and felt like he should have fought back. He couldn't bring himself to draw the doodles on his arms, even if the scratches and bruises had healed. 

Having to move schools didn't help much either. His parents had given him a little information about the school, Dalton, and it seemed nice enough, but that didn't mean Blaine wasn't sad to lose all his friends.

He just couldn't push the guilty feeling away and it was pulling his mood down. The first week of his summer vacation were spent in his room. He only came out to use the bathroom or to grab junk food from the kitchen. He wouldn't even answer texts from his friends. 

It wasn't until the middle of the next week that he realized he hadn't been drawing the doodles he would normally. The only reason he realized was because his soulmate had started to draw, something that had never happened before. The message appeared after the drawings. At first Blaine didn't even read it he just stared at the loopy handwriting, nonetheless he almost started crying when he actually read it. 

He scrambled to find a pen or a marker or anything to write with. The first thing he found was a blue marker on the floor. The quickly drew a small heart beside the line of the message. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's actually been 18 days since I last updated this, doesn't sound like much, but my motivation is pretty low right now.


	7. chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes: I've recently been writing more original stuff so I haven't really had the drive to write for this. Here's another chapter, with much lighter tones, because I need a pick me up from all the crap that's been happening the last few days. I'm hoping this won't seem rushed I want to get a certain part so much. Relatively short.

Summer passed by the same as any other, though there were a lot more notes being written between Kurt and his soulmate. Kurt just needed to make sure that the boy was still doing okay, the doodles had shown up again and he'd gotten a small comment on the things he'd drawn that one night asking him to draw more if he wanted to. The conversations were still quite short, but they were enough for Kurt at least. 

The beginning of the school year was the same as the last. Classes went by as normal, people still pushed him into lockers and threw him dumpsters (though Kurt had begun to put his bag on the ground or shove into one of the Bullies’ arms beforehand) and throwing slushies in his face, but that normal changed once glee club started. Kurt wasn't exactly the star of the group, but he loved singing and he'd actually made some friends from it. Glee had immediately become the one thing he looked forwards to at school. 

“Honestly I wish I didn't have a soulmate, all he does is write his homework on his hand, it's so boring” listening to Rachel talk was usually not the most fun thing in the world, but now the topic of lunch table discussion was soulmates and she seemingly had a lot to say despite her distaste for her soulmate.

“That's because you never actually write anything back, he probably thinks you don't exist or that you hate him.” Mercedes said, earning a small nod from Tina. Mercedes tended to write little notes on her hand more for herself than anything, but if her soulmate did write something for her she responded. Rachel, on the other hand, refused to write anything on herself claiming that the ink would ruin her skin or that being covered in writing was not good for an actress.

“It isn't even anything nice, Mercedes! It's math homework! I want something pretty, like the flowers Tina draws or the swirls on Kurt’s arm! I’d even settle for notes that actually mean something,” Rachel said as she slumped down in her chair. Kurt had basically forgotten about the swirls that day. His long sleeves had covered most of them up and left just enough room for Kurt to be able to see the word  _ courage _ on his wrist, he smiled when he looked down at it. “See! Look at how Kurt smiles when he just glances at the stuff his soulmate draws!” 

The conversation continued on, but quickly moved into something else other than soulmates and it wasn't long before lunch was over. Once Kurt was back in class he got out his red pen, popping the cap on and off a few times before starting to write on his palm.

_ My friend is jealous of your drawings _ . It didn't take more than a minute to get a response in the same blue as the swirls that day. 

_ Guess that means I'm doing a good job.  _ Underneath the writing was a small winky face.

_ Mhm _

* * *

 

Standing in front of Dalton Academy was daunting, the school was big and there were already a ton of students already settled in and even more just arriving. Most of the students seemed to already know each other and Blaine felt pretty out of place. The school was very different from his middle school: it was an all boys school and there were uniforms(which Blaine didn't really mind too much) and it was a boarding school and it was just a lot to take in at one time. 

At least Blaine had spent his summer doing as much with his middle school friends as possible after the message from his soulmate. There was no use in moping around and letting his summer go to waste. He spent a lot of time hanging out at other people’s houses or going places with friends. It brought his mind away from having to leave his friends when school started. 

Despite the way he felt the first day or two Blaine quickly got into the swing of things at Dalton. He tried out for their Glee club, The Warblers, and had gotten in along with a few other freshman. The classes were more challenging than what he had expected, but he was doing pretty well so far. Maybe he liked it here. 

A few days into the school year, during lunch break, a short message appeared on Blaine’s palm.  _ My friend is jealous of your drawings.  _ He looked at the drawings, today the swirls had thinner lines and were closer together, much more detail than usual, but Blaine had found a nice thin blue marker and wanted to use it. He smiled and wrote back as quickly as he could:  _ Guess that means I'm doing a good job ;) _

He could almost feel the sarcasm coming through in the  _ mhm _ that ended the conversation.


	8. chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> listen listen listen, colors matter in this, a lot. This is also just a lot of me wanting the two to interact and getting things to a point where I can skip a lot of time to get closer to where they meet but ya know I guess this is just slow burn now. Also this was actually meant to be summer thing to make me write so I'd get better at stories but I'm invested and school is in again so…

Blaine was in Warbler practice when the words started to appear on his skin. He was in middle of singing a solo and dancing around the room when someone stopped him and told him that there was writing on his face, right across his forehead. He rushed to the bathroom, getting a few weird looks on the way which worried him even more. 

Blaine stood in front of a mirror tracing the word on his forehead trying to process why it there. It was written in large black letters. The handwriting was what he could only describe as pointy and jarring. Slowly he took off his blazer, knowing there would be writing up his arms as well, but he wasn’t expecting to watch more writing appear. Green and black words now covering the blue swirls he’d drawn that morning.

His head was spinning, he couldn't stop imagining his soulmate in the same place he had once been, attacked for something he couldn't control and unable to stop it. Blaine tried to convince himself that his soulmate wasn't physically hurt, just covered in that writing. After a few minutes of just sitting and watching the words appear they stopped. Then a few minutes after they stopped appearing they began to fade like his soulmate was trying to wash them off, starting with the writing on his forehead. 

It took a while for the writing to disappear and once it was gone Blaine took the marker he'd used to draw the swirls that day out from his pocket. Just below where he wrote  _ Courage _ each day Blaine wrote  _ are you okay?what happened? _

The reply took a few minutes and Blaine knew that it was a lie the moment the read it:  _ I'm fine, nothing happened.  _

Blaine’s already messy handwriting got even messier as he wrote his short reply  _ clearly something happened I'm worried about you.  _ He could tell that his soulmate didn't want to talk about what had happened when he saw  _ I'll be fine  _ and the messy circle around the word courage. Still Blaine watched the rest of the other writing disappear and didn't bother going back to glee practice hoping that his friends would understand and he wouldn't be in trouble.

* * *

 

The beginning of the school day had gone without anyone messing with him. That should have been the first clue that something bad was bound to happen, yet Kurt went about his day happy that everything was going so well. The day continued on like this almost until he was able to leave. 

“Hey lady, we've got a surprise for you.” 

The voice came from behind Kurt while he was getting books out of his locker at the end of the day. He froze, dropping a book in his locker. The loud clang made him jump, earning a laugh from the voice as well as a few others. Kurt stood with his head in his locker trying to convince himself that it was just a nightmare and he would wake up any second now. Slowly Kurt turned around to face the voices. 

He was surrounded, back to the lockers, shaking, but staring right back at the group of bullies despite the clear fear in his eyes. He was still trying to convince himself that this was a nightmare. Each of the bullies held a marker, green or black, and a strange smile (something Kurt would describe as somewhere between idiotic and sinister, more of the former than the latter).

 One of them stepped just slightly closer to Kurt making him jump back hitting his head against the lockers. The one that had stepped forward just took this as an opportunity to use one arm to pin Kurt against the lockers and the other to write across Kurt’s forehead. Kurt squirmed under the force and spat out an angry “get off of me” before trying, and failing, to push the guy away. 

Another of the guys grabbed one of Kurt’s arms and started writing on in. The writing was the same simple stupid insults he heard all the time, but this time he only thought of the boy who would have to deal with seeing all the insults written out on his skin with no context. The bullies made just as many stupid jokes out loud as they written on him. Kurt’s snappy nature would overtake the fear when the guy holding his arm twisted it enough to cause a sharp pain in his shoulder. He quickly pulled his arms away and yelled “you idiots can't take the gay out of me any more than I can get the ignorance out of you!”

Kurt stormed off before any of them could say or do anything more to him. He went right to the bathroom to at least wash the writing off his face before going home. The ink took a little while and a lot of soap to wash off, but once the writing on his face was almost gone a message showed up on his wrist.  _ Are you okay? What happened? _ Kurt searched his pockets for a pen with no luck then went digging through his bag for one. Once he found it he scrawled out  _ I’m fine, nothing happened.  _

_ Clearly something happened I'm worried about you.  _ At this point Kurt realized he was crying and had been since he walked into the bathroom. His handwriting matched with his soulmate’s now, being quite a bit messier than usual, and he wrote  _ I'll be fine  _ and circled the  _ courage _ on his wrist. 

Kurt spent another ten minutes trying to wash the black and green writing off his arms without messing up the conversation before he left to go home. 

 


	9. chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so it's been a while since I updated this, but I got a random spike of motivation from watching a bootleg of The Spongebob Musical of all things.

Over time the list of things Blaine had learned about his soulmate got longer and longer, all of it written in the same notebook. Each thing came with a one sided story and a bunch of ideas of the other side could be. Even the simple questions had stories, and it made Blaine happy to know he might actually have a real affect on someone.

~~~

**His favorite color is purple**

This was a question asked quite late at night while Blaine was getting ready to shower. He'd left a marker in his pocket and when it fell out he got the idea to quickly ask a small question. _What's your favorite color?_ He wrote it on his leg and wasn't really expecting a quick answer, yet within ten seconds a reply was being written. Apparently his soulmate had seen it as Blaine wrote it.

_Purple it's a very royal color_ then just a moment later his soulmate was asking the same question right back but only with an arrow from his answer to the question. Responding in the same quick manner Blaine wrote: _Blue, it's calm._

_I should have known_

That was one that made Blaine smile, simple interaction that could mean so much if only they were together physically.  

_~~~_

**He's not a big fan of Valentine's day**

It just one little thing different that set off this conversation, Blaine has drawn hearts within the normal doodles Valentine's day of his freshman year. At the end of the day he noticed that one or two of the hearts had cracks drawn onto them. _What's the big hype about Valentine's anyway…_ was written just above the broken hearts. It confused Blaine quite a bit to see that he'd always enjoyed the holiday, sure the decorations were a bit cheesy but cute nonetheless.

_It's just fun to be lovey I guess_ . Blaine didn't expect to get much out of that but what came in response seemed sort of angry. _Love should be every day not just a random day in February_.

That did make sense to Blaine, but he still didn't quite understand why his soulmate was so against Valentine's day.

~~~

**He wants to go to New York**

Towards the middle of his sophomore year Blaine noticed the words _New York_ surrounded by drawn sparkles on his wrist one day without a clue what that even meant. All he could think of was show choir nationals, which he wouldn't get to go to because the Warblers had lost sectionals to a glee club from Lima. The second time “New York” showed up on his arm he surrounded it with question marks before the same sparkles could be drawn.

_What’s wrong?_ It wasn't usually like Blaine to do that kind of stuff so his soulmate had to be confused at the sudden action.

_Nothing i just want to know why you've written New York there two days in a row??_  Blaine wrote quickly attempting not to sound passive aggressive or get on the other boy’s nerves but he nonetheless failed at the former.

_New York has everything! Broadway, fashion, all that stuff, plus I'm going as a school thing in a few weeks and it would be great to live there one day._

~~~

Sometimes Blaine just liked flipping through the notebook’s few completely filled pages looking at the things he'd learned about his soulmate and the attempted copies of the other boy’s doodles and drawings. One day Blaine wanted the notebook to be full of things he learned about his soulmate even after he met him.

Blaine couldn't wait to meet the other boy, he had imagined it so many times in his head. Sometimes a fairytale of clues bringing them together, sometimes a stranger that had his doodles on his arm that he struck off a conversation with, sometimes the stranger approached him and asked about the doodles before showing his arm to Blaine. He couldn't wait to meet the person he'd been writing to for most of his life.

* * *

 

Kurt wasn’t so engrossed by the concept of soulmates, he’d seen them come, go. and fall apart, it really just seemed like a mess. He would be fine waiting to meet his,not actually seeing each other face to face made fights almost completely avoidable. He’d seen his father’s soulmate change after his mother died, and Kurt really like Carole, but the fact that soulmates could change made Kurt question it all together. What if his soulmate stopped being his soulmate? What if the boy he wrote to now wasn’t the same boy he would write to next year.

Then there were the soulmates at school, which just really got on Kurt’s nerves. Everyone in glee club knew about the drama with soulmates, it was a whole mess throughout sophomore year and now Rachel and Finn just fought a lot. The only good pair of soulmates in the glee club were Tina and Mike. It was easier not to know who your soulmate was and stay out of the silly drama.

Still despite not really having a drive to meet the boy, Kurt enjoyed talking to the boy through the little note and he would take pictures of some just to have a record of them. They only really knew basics about each other, which Kurt was entirely fine with. He didn’t have to know every little thing, he just needed to know there was someone there.

 


End file.
